How to negotiate a salary during a job offer

How many times have you thought, “How can I negotiate a good rate during my job offer?”

And the way that question is worded I’m assuming that you have an offer on the spot and that the salary is being discussed.

I would encourage you to be prepared for that conversation. First of all you want to always start a conversation of with: “First of all I’d like to thank you for the offer.”

How to negotiate a salary during a job interview

Remember that before negotiating your salary with the employer, you should have done your homework-

Meaning; that you should have found out what is the lowest amount you can accept,

- what you can expect
- what you have been making 
- what can you expect in a form of increase.

You need to do research, before getting to your interview or appraisal.

You need to look at sites like salary.cm just so you know if the employer is fair when offering you the salary. 

Let’s take an example. If they offer you a little bit lower then what you have expected, meaning that you can still take it, but it’s still lower than the expected amount, I'd reccommend you to begin with “First of all I would like to thank you for the offer, the amount is just a little bit lower than what I had expected I’d like to ask what flexibility there is.”

Then pause.  Check for body language, and dont be afriad if there are a few seconds pause, very often in scenarios like this, the first person that speaks loses and concedes the point.

If they really want you they will most probably offer some flexibility. If they answer something like “What amount did you have in mind?” you should answer “Well I was hoping the amount would be….” 

You may not be able to go as high as you are asking for, but if you ask for too little, he’s not going to go up.  So you may need to ask for a little bit more then what you were hoping for, just so he say “I can’t do 4000$, but I can do 2000$”, while you were actually hoping for 2000$. So there’s some finesse with that. 

You want to be very honest about what you need in order to pay your bills and what you need in order to work for them.